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50-535: Ranelagh Gardens ( / ˈ r æ n ɪ l ə / ; alternative spellings include Ranelegh and Ranleigh, the latter reflecting the English pronunciation) were public pleasure gardens located in Chelsea , then just outside London , England, in the 18th century. The Ranelagh Gardens were so called because they occupied the site of Ranelagh House , built in 1688–89 by The 1st Earl of Ranelagh , an Anglo-Irish peer who

100-562: A temple to Venus , and monumental sculptures , the gardens were open to the public for centuries. A paradeisos was a playground for the Persian nobility, combining parklands, orchards and hunting grounds. In 321 BC the Partition of Triparadisus was signed at Triparidisus in Syria, a vast pleasure grounds complex in Syria. Formal, extravagant pleasure gardens came to Roman Britain in

150-400: A "pleasure garden" or pleasure ground meant private flower gardens , shrub gardens or formal wooded areas such as bosquets , that were planted for enjoyment, with ornamental plants and neat paths for walking. These were distinguished from the areas in a large garden planted as lawns or a landscaped park, or the "useful" areas of the kitchen garden and woodland. Pleasure gardens provided

200-905: A New York Ranelagh Gardens was opened in New York, in the former Rutgers house, as a rival to the New York Vauxhall Gardens ; its proprietor John Kenzie posted an advertisement for it during the occupation of the city in the American Revolution , in hopes of attracting the British soldiers, as well as "the Respectable Public", and a Jardin Ranelagh was created in Paris' fashionable 16th arrondissement in 1870. Ranelagh Gardens were redesigned by John Gibson in

250-549: A complement to home or architecture, but conceived as independent spaces, arranged to grow and display flowers and ornamental plants. Gardeners demonstrated their artistry in knot gardens , with complex arrangements most commonly included interwoven box hedges , and less commonly fragrant herbs like rosemary . Sanded paths run between the hedgings of open knots whereas closed knots were filled with single colored flowers. The knot and parterre gardens were always placed on level ground, and elevated areas reserved for terraces from which

300-416: A cool and refreshing refuge from the summer heat. The Mediterranean gardens were also maintained in the winter season, with winter rain allowing for the upkeep of rose and almond trees in northern Italy. This made the gardens a welcome retreat throughout the year. The two meanings of the term, as the ornamental parts of a garden, and as a commercial place of entertainment, coexisted in English from at least

350-482: A few significant gardens were found in Britain which were developed under the influence of the continent. Britain's homegrown domestic gardening traditions were mostly practical in purpose, rather than aesthetic, unlike the grand gardens found mostly on castle grounds, and less commonly in universities. Tudor Gardens emphasized contrast rather than transitions, distinguished by color and illusion. They were not intended as

400-623: A knowledge and experience of using plants. Some professional garden designers are also landscape architects , a more formal level of training that usually requires an advanced degree and often an occupational license . Elements of garden design include the layout of hard landscape, such as paths, rockeries, walls, water features, sitting areas and decking, as well as the plants themselves, with consideration for their horticultural requirements, their season-to-season appearance, lifespan, growth habit , size, speed of growth, and combinations with other plants and landscape features. Most gardens consist of

450-612: A mixture of natural and constructed elements, although even very 'natural' gardens are always an inherently artificial creation. Natural elements present in a garden principally comprise flora (such as trees and weeds ), fauna (such as arthropods and birds), soil, water, air and light. Constructed elements include not only paths, patios , decking, sculptures, drainage systems, lights and buildings (such as sheds , gazebos , pergolas and follies ), but also living constructions such as flower beds , ponds and lawns . Garden needs of maintenance are also taken into consideration. Including

500-758: A small enclosed area of land, usually adjoining a building. This would be referred to as a yard in American English . A garden can have aesthetic , functional, and recreational uses: The earliest recorded Chinese gardens were created in the valley of the Yellow River , during the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC). These gardens were large enclosed parks where the kings and nobles hunted game, or where fruit and vegetables were grown. Early inscriptions from this period, carved on tortoise shells, have three Chinese characters for garden, you , pu and yuan . You

550-635: A symbol for a plantation or a pomegranate tree. A famous royal garden of the late Shang dynasty was the Terrace, Pond and Park of the Spirit ( Lingtai, Lingzhao Lingyou ) built by King Wenwang west of his capital city, Yin . The park was described in the Classic of Poetry this way: Another early royal garden was Shaqui , or the Dunes of Sand , built by the last Shang ruler, King Zhou (1075–1046 BC). It

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600-462: A winding stream". Korean gardens are a type of garden described as being natural, informal, simple and unforced, seeking to merge with the natural world. They have a history that goes back more than two thousand years, but are little known in the west. The oldest records date to the Three Kingdoms period (57 BC – 668 AD) when architecture and palace gardens showed a development noted in

650-637: Is a planned space, usually outdoors, set aside for the cultivation, display, and enjoyment of plants and other forms of nature. The single feature identifying even the wildest wild garden is control . The garden can incorporate both natural and artificial materials. Gardens often have design features including statuary, follies , pergolas , trellises , stumperies , dry creek beds, and water features such as fountains , ponds (with or without fish ), waterfalls or creeks. Some gardens are for ornamental purposes only, while others also produce food crops, sometimes in separate areas, or sometimes intermixed with

700-512: Is a residential or public garden, but the term garden has traditionally been a more general one. Zoos , which display wild animals in simulated natural habitats, were formerly called zoological gardens. Western gardens are almost universally based on plants, with garden , which etymologically implies enclosure , often signifying a shortened form of botanical garden . Some traditional types of eastern gardens, such as Zen gardens , however, use plants sparsely or not at all. Landscape gardens, on

750-691: Is located at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire , but is too simple to attract much interest. During the reign of Charles II , many new Baroque style country houses were built; while in England Oliver Cromwell sought to destroy many Tudor, Jacobean and Caroline style gardens. Garden design is the process of creating plans for the layout and planting of gardens and landscapes. Gardens may be designed by garden owners themselves, or by professionals. Professional garden designers tend to be trained in principles of design and horticulture, and have

800-517: The Château de Blois . Beginning in 1528, King Francis I created new gardens at the Château de Fontainebleau , which featured fountains, parterres, a forest of pine trees brought from Provence , and the first artificial grotto in France. The Château de Chenonceau had two gardens in the new style, one created for Diane de Poitiers in 1551, and a second for Catherine de' Medici in 1560. In 1536,

850-409: The ornamental plants . Food-producing gardens are distinguished from farms by their smaller scale, more labor-intensive methods, and their purpose (enjoyment of a hobby or self-sustenance rather than producing for sale, as in a market garden ). Flower gardens combine plants of different heights, colors, textures, and fragrances to create interest and delight the senses. The most common form today

900-443: The 17th and 18th centuries. Many contained large concert halls, or hosted promenade concerts ; some lesser discussed pleasure gardens were home to haberdasheries and harems. A smaller version of a pleasure garden is a tea garden , where visitors may drink tea and stroll. The rise of the suburban, private garden in the 20th century coincided with and influenced the decline of the public pleasure garden. Garden A garden

950-513: The 17th century. The depiction of entertainment in nature has been documented as far back as 1500 BC, with depictions of garden scenes with guests entertained by musicians and dancing girls. In ancient Rome , the landscaped Gardens of Sallust ( Horti Sallustiani ) were developed as a private garden by the historian Sallust . The gardens were acquired by the Roman Emperor Tiberius for public use. Containing many pavilions,

1000-521: The 19th century. It is now a green pleasure ground with shaded walks, part of the grounds of Chelsea Hospital and the site of the annual Chelsea Flower Show . Pleasure gardens A pleasure garden is a park or garden that is open to the public for recreation and entertainment . Pleasure gardens differ from other public gardens by serving as venues for entertainment, variously featuring such attractions as concert halls , bandstands , amusement rides , zoos , and menageries . Historically

1050-458: The 1st century AD, such as can now be seen at Fishbourne Roman Palace . Such gardens were typically decorated with statues, columns, fountains and frescoed walls, as well as decorative stonework. They would likely have been used for hosting and entertaining Roman-born officials and merchants, as well as the native, Romanized British upper classes. Public pleasure gardens were opened in London from

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1100-542: The French gardening traditions of Andre Mollet and Jacques Boyceau , from which the latter wrote: "All things, however beautiful they may be chosen, will be defective if they are not ordered and placed in proper symmetry." A good example of the French formal style are the Tuileries gardens in Paris which were originally designed during the reign of King Henry II in the mid-sixteenth century. The gardens were redesigned into

1150-643: The Korean History of the Three Kingdoms . Gardening was not recognized as an art form in Europe until the mid 16th century when it entered the political discourse, as a symbol of the concept of the "ideal republic". Evoking utopian imagery of the Garden of Eden , a time of abundance and plenty where humans didn't know hunger or the conflicts that arose from property disputes. John Evelyn wrote in

1200-459: The Rotunda at Ranelagh Gardens was an important venue for musical concerts. In 1765, the nine-year-old Mozart performed in this showplace. Canaletto painted the gardens, and painted the interior of the Rotunda twice, for different patrons. The rotunda was closed in 1803 and demolished two years later. The organ was moved to All Saints Church, Evesham . There was also a Chinese pavilion, which

1250-495: The architect Philibert de l'Orme , upon his return from Rome, created the gardens of the Château d'Anet following the Italian rules of proportion. The carefully prepared harmony of Anet, with its parterres and surfaces of water integrated with sections of greenery, became one of the earliest and most influential examples of the classic French garden. The French formal garden ( French : jardin à la française ) contrasted with

1300-404: The chronicle recorded: "The Emperor Keikō put a few carp into a pond, and rejoiced to see them morning and evening". The following year, "The Emperor launched a double-hulled boat in the pond of Ijishi at Ihare, and went aboard with his imperial concubine, and they feasted sumptuously together". In 486, the chronicle recorded that "The Emperor Kenzō went into the garden and feasted at the edge of

1350-1245: The death of living beings outside the garden, such as local species extinction by indiscriminate plant collectors ; and climate change caused by greenhouse gases produced by gardening. Gardeners can help to prevent climate change in many ways, including the use of trees, shrubs, ground cover plants and other perennial plants in their gardens, turning garden waste into soil organic matter instead of burning it, keeping soil and compost heaps aerated, avoiding peat, switching from power tools to hand tools or changing their garden design so that power tools are not needed, and using nitrogen-fixing plants instead of nitrogen fertiliser. Climate change will have many impacts on gardens; some studies suggest most of them will be negative. Gardens also contribute to climate change. Greenhouse gases can be produced by gardeners in many ways. The three main greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide , methane , and nitrous oxide . Gardeners produce carbon dioxide directly by overcultivating soil and destroying soil carbon , by burning garden waste on bonfires , by using power tools which burn fossil fuel or use electricity generated by fossil fuels , and by using peat . Gardeners produce methane by compacting

1400-430: The design principles of the English landscape garden ( French : jardin à l'anglaise ) namely, to "force nature" instead of leaving it undisturbed. Typical French formal gardens had "parterres, geometrical shapes and neatly clipped topiary", in contrast to the English style of garden in which "plants and shrubs seem to grow naturally without artifice." By the mid-17th century axial symmetry had ascended to prominence in

1450-516: The desired stylistic genres, and the way the garden space will connect to the home or other structures in the surrounding areas. All of these considerations are subject to the budget limitations. Budget limitations can be addressed by a simpler garden style with fewer plants and less costly hard landscape materials, seeds rather than sod for lawns, and plants that grow quickly; alternatively, garden owners may choose to create their garden over time, area by area. Gardeners may cause environmental damage by

1500-508: The early 17th century, "there is not a more laborious life then is that of a good Gard'ners; but a labour full of tranquility and satisfaction; Natural and Instructive, and such as (if any) contributes to Piety and Contemplation." During the era of Enclosures , the agrarian collectivism of the feudal age was idealized in literary "fantasies of liberating regression to garden and wilderness". Following his campaign in Italy in 1495, where he saw

1550-400: The entrance charge was two shillings and sixpence, compared to a shilling at Vauxhall. Horace Walpole wrote soon after the gardens opened, "It has totally beat Vauxhall... You can't set your foot without treading on a Prince, or Duke of Cumberland ." Ranelagh Gardens introduced the masquerade , formerly a private, aristocratic entertainment, to a wider, middle-class English public, where it

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1600-538: The formal French style for the Sun King Louis XIV . The gardens were ordered into symmetrical lines: long rows of elm or chestnut trees, clipped hedgerows, along with parterres, "reflect[ing] the orderly triumph of man's will over nature." The French landscape garden was influenced by the English landscape garden and gained prominence in the late eighteenth century. Before the Grand Manner era,

1650-831: The garden, the first time I ever was there, and a pretty place it is". Cuper's Gardens , on the southern bank of the River Thames , opened in the 1680s. These both expanded their areas greatly in the 18th century, the heyday of the pleasure garden. New openings in the 18th and 19th centuries in London included Cremorne Gardens , Ranelagh Gardens , Royal Surrey Gardens , Vauxhall Gardens and Royal Flora Gardens . Other cities, in England and abroad, acquired their own, such as Holte Bridgman's Apollo Gardens in Birmingham (1740s) and Leeds Royal Park in 1858. Most modern gardens would have been called "pleasure gardens", especially in

1700-493: The gardens and castles of Naples, King Charles VIII brought Italian craftsmen and garden designers , such as Pacello da Mercogliano , from Naples and ordered the construction of Italian-style gardens at his residence at the Château d'Amboise and at Château Gaillard, another private résidence in Amboise. His successor Henry II , who had also travelled to Italy and had met Leonardo da Vinci , created an Italian garden nearby at

1750-557: The intricacy of the gardens could be viewed. Jacobean gardens were described as "a delightful confusion" by Henry Wotton in 1624. Under the influence of the Italian Renaissance , Caroline gardens began to shed some of the chaos of earlier designs, marking the beginning of a trends towards symmetrical unified designs that took the building architecture into account, and featuring an elevated terrace from which home and garden could be viewed. The only surviving Caroline garden

1800-498: The later 17th century; many had previously been parts of large private gardens, so the garden layout already existed. Usually entrance required payment. English nobles were increasingly able to build undefended, hospitable homes equipped with pleasure gardens displaying exotic fauna introduced from the Americas and Indies. Marylebone Gardens was visited by Samuel Pepys on 7 May 1668: "And we abroad to Marrowbone, and there walked in

1850-980: The other hand, such as the English landscape gardens first developed in the 18th century, may omit flowers altogether. Landscape architecture is a related professional activity with landscape architects tending to engage in design at many scales and working on both public and private projects. The etymology of the word gardening refers to enclosure : it is from Middle English gardin , from Anglo-French gardin , jardin , of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German gard , gart , an enclosure or compound, as in Stuttgart . See Grad (Slavic settlement) for more complete etymology. The words yard , court , and Latin hortus (meaning "garden", hence horticulture and orchard), are cognates—all referring to an enclosed space. The term "garden" in British English refers to

1900-607: The park in the Vana-krida chapter. Shilparatna , a text from the sixteenth century, states that flower gardens or public parks should be located in the northern portion of a town. The earliest recorded Japanese gardens were the pleasure gardens of the Emperors and nobles. They were mentioned in several brief passages of the Nihon Shoki , the first chronicle of Japanese history, published in 720 CE. In spring 74 CE,

1950-504: The roasted meat from the trees. Later Chinese philosophers and historians cited this garden as an example of decadence and bad taste. During the Spring and Autumn period (722–481 BC), in 535 BC, the Terrace of Shanghua , with lavishly decorated palaces, was built by King Jing of the Zhou dynasty . In 505 BC, an even more elaborate garden, the Terrace of Gusu , was begun. It was located on

2000-515: The side of a mountain, and included a series of terraces connected by galleries, along with a lake where boats in the form of blue dragons navigated. From the highest terrace, a view extended as far as Lake Tai , the Great Lake. Manasollasa is a twelfth century Sanskrit text that offers details on garden design and a variety of other subjects. Both public parks and woodland gardens are described, with about 40 types of trees recommended for

2050-448: The soil and making it anaerobic, and by allowing their compost heaps to become compacted and anaerobic. Gardeners produce nitrous oxide by applying excess nitrogen fertiliser when plants are not actively growing so that the nitrogen in the fertiliser is converted by soil bacteria to nitrous oxide. Some gardeners manage their gardens without using any water from outside the garden. Examples in Britain include Ventnor Botanic Garden on

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2100-418: The time or funds available for regular maintenance, (this can affect the choices of plants regarding speed of growth) spreading or self-seeding of the plants (annual or perennial), bloom-time, and many other characteristics. Garden design can be roughly divided into two groups, formal and naturalistic gardens. The most important consideration in any garden design is how the garden will be used, followed closely by

2150-533: The way they garden, or they may enhance their local environment. Damage by gardeners can include direct destruction of natural habitats when houses and gardens are created; indirect habitat destruction and damage to provide garden materials such as peat , rock for rock gardens, and by the use of tapwater to irrigate gardens; the death of living beings in the garden itself, such as the killing not only of slugs and snails but also their predators such as hedgehogs and song thrushes by metaldehyde slug killer;

2200-448: Was a royal garden where birds and animals were kept, while pu was a garden for plants. During the Qin dynasty (221–206 BC), yuan became the character for all gardens. The old character for yuan is a small picture of a garden; it is enclosed in a square which can represent a wall, and has symbols which can represent the plan of a structure, a small square which can represent a pond, and

2250-414: Was added in 1750, an ornamental lake and several walks. Ranelagh was a popular venue for romantic assignations. Edward Gibbon wrote that it was, "the most convenient place for courtships of every kind — the best market we have in England." Such was the renown of the gardens and the vogue for music in the open air (the eight year-old Wolfgang Mozart played a charity performance there on 29 June 1764) that

2300-633: Was composed of an earth terrace, or tai , which served as an observation platform in the center of a large square park. It was described in one of the early classics of Chinese literature, the Records of the Grand Historian ( Shiji ). According to the Shiji , one of the most famous features of this garden was the Wine Pool and Meat Forest (酒池肉林). A large pool, big enough for several small boats,

2350-401: Was constructed on the palace grounds, with inner linings of polished oval shaped stones from the seashore. The pool was then filled with wine. A small island was constructed in the middle of the pool, where trees were planted, which had skewers of roasted meat hanging from their branches. King Zhou and his friends and concubines drifted in their boats, drinking the wine with their hands and eating

2400-561: Was one of the Earl's Irish estates: a similar pleasure garden was opened near Dublin city , and this gives its name to the present-day suburb of Ranelagh . In 1741, the house and grounds were purchased by a syndicate led by the proprietor of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane , and Sir Thomas Robinson MP, and the gardens opened to the public the following year. Ranelagh was considered more fashionable than its older rival Vauxhall Gardens ;

2450-472: Was open to commentary by essayists and writers of moral fiction. The centrepiece of Ranelagh was a rococo rotunda , which figured prominently in views of Ranelagh Gardens taken from the river. It had a diameter of 120 feet (37 metres) and was designed by William Jones, a surveyor to the East India Company . The central support housed a chimney and fireplaces for use in winter. From its opening,

2500-569: Was the Treasurer of Chelsea Hospital (1685–1702), immediately adjoining the hospital; according to Bowack's Antiquities of Middlesex (1705), it was "Designed and built by himself". Its actual builder and owner was one Solomon Rieti, an Italian Jewish immigrant. Rieti's niece, Rebecca Rieti, was the grandmother of Benjamin Disraeli . Ranelagh House was demolished in 1805 (Colvin 1995, p. 561). The original Ranelagh ( Irish : Raghnallach )

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